Material Culture Lecture

John Robb (Cambridge University), Stalking Invisible Objects: Analyzing Thingworlds in History and Archeology. Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Department of Anthropology, Department of History, Standing Committee on Archeology, and Committee on Medieval Studies' Medieval Material Culture Program.

The human past is a material past, but we have never really understood material history. In large part this is due to a mismatch between what most material culture theories offer and what students of the past actually need. In this paper, following a quick, idiosyncratic and opinionated review of current material culture theory, Dr. Robb argues that we need to shift from approaching objects philosophically to approaching them historically. This means innovating new methodologies which focus upon material culture’s most important qualities: the cumulativity and relationality which make a normal assemblage of objects a social reality of depth, persuasiveness and efficacy—a "thingworld".